International

BUSINESS WIRE

December 24, 1986

KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN said Tuesday it will become the first Western fast- food company to open restaurants in the People`s Republic of China. The company has signed a joint-venture agreement the Beijing Corp. to operate in China. The first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant is scheduled to open in Beijing (Peking) sometime next year.

TRANSWORLD CORP. of New York said it would sell its Hilton International hotel chain for $980 million to UAL, of Chicago, parent company of United Airlines, after the board of the Dutch state airline KLM backed out of a purchase agreement. Transworld announced last Thursday that it was selling the 90-hotel Hilton International for $975 million. It later said the tentative buyer was KLM. Transworld said KLM offered no explanation for backing out.

NATIONAL

YIELDS ON 52-WEEK Treasury bills rose in Tuesday`s auction. The average yield was 5.60 percent, up from 5.45 percent at the last auction on Nov. 20. A total of $9.75 billion in bills were sold out of bids totaling $28.51 billion. The notes will carry an investment rate of 5.93 percent with each $10,000 in face value selling for $9,435.30.

GENERAL MOTORS CORP. may add more assembly plants to the list of 11 aging operations that will be closed in the next few years to reduce overproduction and operating costs, a top GM executive said. GM`s assembly plant in the Kansas City, Mo., suburb of Leeds is among the locations that have not escaped the possibility of closing in the future, said William Hoglund, vice president in charge of GM`s Buick-Oldsmobile-Cadillac group.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES` estimated earnings for 1986 and 1987 have been cut by at least four computer analysts. Perhaps the sharpest cut, analysts say, is by Kidder Peabody, which reportedly slashed its 1986 estimate to $7.95 from $8.70 a share, probably the lowest of the estimates. Dean Witter Reynolds has apparently cut its 1987 estimate to $9 from $10, they say. Alex Brown and Montgomery Securities are also reported to have cut estimates sharply.

JAMES ABDNOR, who lost his Senate seat in the November election, was picked Tuesday as chief of the Small Business Administration and immediately pledged to restore confidence and morale at the embattled agency. Stymied by Congress in his attempts first to abolish the agency and then move it to the Commerce Department, President Reagan said, ``A lean and mean SBA will continue to play a role in our administration, even in these times of budget restraint.`` With 4,000 employees, the agency makes loans to help new small businesses and to help pay for reconstruction costs after floods and other natural disasters. It has written more than 350,000 loans since it was created in 1953.

FEDERAL REGULATORS said they are looking into a report of after-hour trading, violating exchange rules, at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange last Friday during the ``triple witching hour.`` The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that traders were still conducting business 5 minutes after the close of trading in the Merc`s Standard & Poor`s 500 stock index futures pit. The triple witching hour occurs quarterly when there is the simultaneous expiration of stock index futures, stock index options and of options on individual stocks. This sometimes produces volatile trading and wild swings in prices on the stock market as well as in futures and options.

THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION said it is looking into some recent stock purchases by investment banking firms in which clients arranged for the firms to buy voting securities of a company on their behalf but did not report it to federal agencies as the law requires. No specifics of the purchases were given. The clients for whom the banking firms make the purchases could be subject to substantial penalties if violations are found, warned Jeffrey L. Zuckerman, director of the FTC Bureau of Competition.

NATIONAL CAR RENTAL SYSTEM INC. is to be sold to an investor group led by the securities firm PaineWebber Inc. for $459 million in cash. The seller is Household International, based near Chicago. The investor group also includes Fidelco Capital Group, a private investment firm based in Millburn, N.J., and Ardshiel Inc., another private investment firm headquartered in New York. National, headquartered in Minneapolis, is the nation`s third-largest auto rental concern behind Hertz Corp., a unit of UAL Inc., and privately held Avis Inc. National has about 3,000 outlets worldwide, with some of the foreign outlets run by affiliates. Household is a consumer loan and diversified manufacturing firm. Household also announced it would spend up to $100 million on a share-buyback program to boost its stock price.